Lost Souls (2000)

There is nothing to say about this movie. IT SUCKED. I love Winona Ryder, and that's the only reason it even gets a 1 out of 10. All the action you see is in the preview, so just watch that. Do not go see this piece of c**p. Go see Digimon instead. It's bound to have more action and mature themes than this 'G' movie.

Fmovies: Throughout the movie I was rather entertained. Granted, there were cheap thrills and a few startling moments, it was a humorous movie. I think that about all horror movies so nothing is special about this one yet. Truthfully, I don't have much to say about this movie. The ending sucks, it is the biggest let down of any movie I have ever seen. The whole audience had no choice but to boo this movie as the credits began to roll. I would not recommend you see this movie, ever. It's not worth the money, go buy a can of paint, I guarantee you'll enjoy watching it dry more than this movie.

Winona had just had a big hit with "Girl Interrupted," and Ben Chaplin was impressive doing Montgomery Cliff's "The Heiress" part in "Washington Square." So what possessed them to do a cheesy "Exorcist" meets "the Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby" formula movie? In any case, the movie has a good opening twenty minutes and promises real scary stuff to come. You don't know anything about the characters or what's going on and that makes it a little frustrating, but you can forgive the movie for that. Unfortunately, the movie becomes less scary the more the silly plot and characters gets revealed. Probably the silliest moment comes when Winona tells Ben that he fits the profile for the "antichrist" because he's never been baptized. It is hard to see how Winona Horowitz could say such a thing with a straight face.

Apparently the first time director is a great cinematographer. That is usually not such a good thing. Yes, Stanley Kubrick did make the transition, but most cinematographers are too concerned with the lighting and have no idea how to direct actors. That turns out to be the case here, where everybody is just doing monotone line readings.

I confess my love for Winona, but even her presence only makes the film barely watchable and not quite enjoyable or fun.

Lost Souls fmovies. This was a fairly good "Devil" story and certainly worth renting.

GOOD - Decent suspense and cinematography and kudos for pointing out there IS a Satan and converting a non-believer to that fact. Winona Ryder looks very pretty, too, as good as I've seen her. This was before her real-life problems put her in the news and her career took a nosedive. Also the profanity is pretty low in here.

BAD - A somewhat-disappointing finish; some skewed theology (but not as bad as most movies); same cliché scenes where a person should have been shot but the shooter hesitates way too long and is stopped; priests winding up as villains.

OVERALL - it's not a bad film and could have been really good with a tighter script and a little more suspense at the end.

In this horror effort, Winona Ryder (my has her career fallen) plays a young woman who once went through an exorcism (?) and now finds herself as the one person who can prevent Satan himself from occupying the body of a normally decent enough New Yorker (do decent New Yorkers exist??) Ryder does her best with the supernatural material and Ben Chaplin as the perplexed chosen one is decent. The story and direction (by first time director and award winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski) rachet up the thrills and suspense and arent afraid to offer a downbeat ending. Sometimes gets obsessed with style over substance however. GRADE: B-

Was this made for TV? Probably went striaght to rental. It's ok for a time filler, nothing much more. Couple of scenes may make you jump, or at least curl your lip. Not tooo slow going, just managed to keep my interest long enough until the anti-climatical ending. It's like reading a book only to find that the last page is missing, but then reaslise that it makes no difference...